First, sorry for the long hiatus in posting. Changes in work and other conditions occupied time and resources for a long while. Also, I frankly lost interest in writing about things that never changed, and never seemed to amount to more than passing noise.
This matter is different.
At this point, despite the title, I should make clear that I am not writing this as a Trump supporter for the 2024 White House race. The man has flaws and liabilities, and frankly we are too early in the election cycle to really say someone has a ‘lead’ or is the ‘favorite’. Let that process play out, and I would be very happy if the GOP proved able to produce a nominee which did not have Trump’s flaws. But this article is written to look at the longer perspective, especially the motives of the key players.
This mess all started when Bill Clinton had an affair with an intern while President of the United States. He then lied under oath to avoid having to pay damages from a lawsuit from a former mistress. This fact is important for two reasons: first, Bill Clinton committed an actual, verified crime while in office as President of the United States, something which never happened before in US History, and two, the impeachment sharply divided the nation, as citizens had to decide if Clinton’s crime rose to the level that Clinton should be removed from office.
The Democrats have never forgotten the impeachment, and have made clear ever since that they meant to get revenge on a Republican President. A lot of people forget that Democrats filed articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush, and openly talked about impeaching President Trump even before he took office. At the very least, this demonstrates that the Democrats meant to harass Trump, clearly spurning from the start any interest in the proper relationship with a duly-elected President.
The two impeachments created against Trump can only be described as spiteful and based on imagination. This does not even touch on the wasteful 3-year Mueller commission, or the refusal by Democrats to address the abuse of FISA warrants by Comey, Strzok, and Rosenstein. The American people are known for short memory, but any serious comprehension of the Democrats’ political strategy since 2015 must accept that there was a mindless hatred of Trump based on political malice and nothing else.
So, am I claiming Trump was really an innocent and honorable man, attacked by evil forces, as he so often likes to claim? Not exactly. There is no doubt, for example, that Trump is a serial adulterer, as his string of failed marriages displays. Trump also made his money in Real Estate deals, at least some of which involved slick manipulation of conditions and liability so that whatever happened, Trump would not be left holding the cost if things when south. These facts, along with Trump’s bellicose personality and habit of portraying every event in personal terms (that is, everything is either good work done by him or an attack on him), provide grist for the Democrats to cast Trump as immature and petty.
But while Trump has been forced to file bankruptcies on some of his businesses, declare losses on some of his tax returns, and sometimes face fines for business behavior, Trump has personally never been convicted of any illegal actions. Ordinarily that would not be much to his credit – anyone here could say as much for himself or herself.
However, given the relentless efforts by enemies for more than seven years to find anything they could use on Trump, the complete absence of real criminal behavior has become a farcical verdict on the Democrats. And the blatantly dishonest prosecution by Manhattan DA Bragg has revealed what looks to many Americans as a sinister character in the Left. It was one thing in 2016 when Trump claimed he was being spied upon. It’s something very different now, not only because we now know Trump was right about the spying, but because the New York case is clearly a mockery of Justice.
In some ways, the Left is hurting themselves in the way they handle their investigations of Trump. There are essentially four cases working against Trump: the Manhattan case, the Georgia case, the Special Counsel case regarding the classified documents at Mira Lago, and the January 6th case. None of these is particularly strong when you look at them in detail, which explains the pursuit of so many cases – the Democrats want Trump to look as corrupt as possible, in hopes of killing off his support, especially among Independent and Women voters who will be the key to the 2024 Election.
But as I said, none of these cases really has much to hurt Trump in terms of evidence. They look bad at first, and the mainstream media has obligingly painted Trump as a slimy crook. But we live in an age where a lot of people test assumptions, and when examined in depth the claims fall apart, sometimes with the help of Trump’s own enemies.
Consider the classified documents case. When the FBI raided Mira Lago, for example, the media breathlessly treated the matter as a serious crime by a shameless Trump, but soon after, classified documents were also found at the residences of both President Biden and former Vice-President Pence, and media grudgingly admitted that other former Presidents had kept classified documents for many years, and none of them were the target of a high-profile raid as was performed against Trump. What might have been a problem for Trump has turned into a nothing-burger, as there is no way to legally attack Trump on that count without admitting other former Presidents were just as guilty and Biden much worse. I mean, keeping classified documents in your unlocked garage while a Senator and not yet authorized to have such documents, let alone declassify them, that’s a very serious problem for Biden and if he were not sitting in the Oval Office right now, he would be sweating in a court room.
The Democrats had a pretty good opportunity to damage Trump’s image for the 2024 election cycle, but they could not decide between legal action primarily or media action, and when it became obvious the Republicans would retake control of Congress, the Left decided they needed a legal conviction of Trump. This is failing on all fronts so far, even though the DA may get a conviction in Manhattan. This is because the blatant hypocrisy has turned off voters and worse for Democrats, they are facing a scenario where they either lose the court case or see the conviction overturned. In either case the Left will be revealed as dishonest schemers. The Left somehow forgot those Republicans who oppose Trump, and who would have been willing to work with Democrats to keep Trump out of the White House. The Left could have worked to keep Trump looking selfish and dishonest, with endless ‘investigations’ at the local and state level all the way through next year, but instead they over-estimated the strength of their cases and have played themselves for fools.
Now, all this has been said to some degree in various places, but what gets missed is just why the Democrats and some Republicans hate Trump so very much. Trump would tell you he is the Last Defender of America or something like that, but it’s really a matter that Trump was the guy at the wrong/right place and the wrong/right time.
I don’t buy into every conspiracy theory, but it’s naive to ignore that conspiracies do exist, even at the highest levels. The American Revolution itself started as a conspiracy in the American colonies, as farmers and merchants in Boston and Philadelphia planned how to replace British authority with self-rule more than a decade before the shots at Concord and Lexington. The Continental Army was organized and established in defiance of the King’s authority. On the other side of things, we know that Charles Manson had his followers commit murders in hopes of starting a race war, and the Mafia hoped to create a shadow government where they could influence laws and authority to advance their own interests.
So it’s not really out outrageous to consider the motives and intentions of George Soros, to ponder how career politicians like Pelosi, Schumer and McConnell made all those millions they have in the bank far beyond what they could ever have earned honestly, or just what those ‘art’ investors who spent all that money on Hunter Biden’s “art” were really buying.
This brings us back to the character of the Democrats. I will start on that part by recognizing that there have been good Democrats who loved America’s law and principles. Grover Cleveland, for example, was a great leader who fought to reform government. But it’s undeniable that it was Democrats who supported the Confederacy, the Democrats who created the Ku Klux Klan, who created Jim Crow laws, and to this day have supported and advanced efforts to take away American rights.
Going back to Clinton’s Presidency, for example, don’t forget that the hijacking of the Healthcare Industry, which became law under President Obama, was first proposed under President Clinton by his wife Hillary. Clinton was also implicated in Arms and Technology transfers to China, for no better purpose than money later paid to the Clinton Foundation, which essentially served as a large-scale money laundering scheme.
And let’s not forget the matter of Infidelity. Democrats have been able to establish that Trump had affairs before he was President. But Clinton, Johnson, Kennedy, Roosevelt and other Democrats had affairs while they were President.
In addition to Socialized Healthcare, Bill Clinton also introduced Anti-American Foreign Policy and a Globalist Trade Policy, policies which Democrats have consistently advanced ever since, especially by Hillary Clinton. This is one reason Hillary Clinton was Obama’s Secretary of State, to confirm that Obama’s Foreign and Trade policies were consistent with the long-term goals of the Democrats, to wit, expanded Government control of all aspects of Life in all countries. The Bush Administration, although nominally Republican, was consistent with both the Clinton and Obama Administrations in a polarizing Foreign Policy and Globalist Trade Policy.
The Hillary Clinton Administration meant to continue those policies, and in many cases complete them. This is one reason the DNC overrode a number of the Primary results in 2016 – they could not allow Senator Sanders to take office as President; they needed Hillary in that chair.
Then came Trump’s victory. As late as the day before the election, Clinton was broadly expected to win, and to do so comfortably. Trump’s win was a stunning surprise.
After Trump’s work of undoing Obama’s policies wherever he found them, including and especially dismantling Globalism in favor of American Exceptionalism, the last thing Democrats wanted and therefore the greatest thing they fear, is a second Trump term. This alone can explain the absolute hysteria among Democrats regarding Trump’s 2024 run.
On every measurable standard of pro- or anti-American policy or action, Democrats have done less good and caused more harm than Republicans. Enough so, that it stands to reason whether voting for a Democrat is un-American by definition.
Coming back to Trump, then, we are left to ask why the Left and some Republicans hate him as much as they do, to the point of raving spite that makes them look insane at times. The thing about Trump is that he is both anomalous and a trend. Which scares his enemies no end.
In my lifetime, Republicans have often shown a remarkable lack of spine. While we can point to Reagan and some few other conservative icons, the GOP has also nominated men like Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney for President, men whose spirit to fight for American ideals was/is dubious at best. At this moment, our “leaders” in Congress are McCarthy and McConnell. Democrats, whatever else we can say about them, have been effective in presenting candidates with style and fire in their arguments.
Then there is Trump. For all his flaws, I cannot remember ever seeing a Republican who liked a fight as much as Trump does, nor someone able to pay attention to what concerned voters. Border Security, the Economy, avoiding useless wars and laws which follow the Constitution’s boundaries have always mattered to Americans, but many Republican politicians have played to the interests of lobbyists.
Which at last brings us to the Deep State and the Swamp. Those are not the same thing, although they are both problems. Millions of Americans now work for the government, which grows more and more bloated while providing less loyalty to the rights of Americans. We cannot gain control of the Federal Deficit without cutting way back on these ranks, which federal employees see as an attack on their jobs.
The Swamp is much worse. We see hints of how the Swamp thinks when people like Pelosi demand regular Americans be denied the right to self-defense from criminals, even as she herself has armed private security. We see it in Congress demanding Americans spend thousands of dollars on healthcare, needed or not, while they exempt themselves from such requirements. We see it bills which pile thousands of pork projects in omnibus legislation, which is voted on usually without Representatives even reading before the vote.
The Swamp has a simple way of working. New Representatives and Senators find out they have to ‘pay their due’ before they can take any important roles, which means going along with someone else’s grift and pork. Anyone who dares to stand against the Establishment will find themselves without money or allies of endorsements when they run for re-election. It was in this way that Establishment Republicans diluted then eliminated the Tea Party.
Trump does not play this game. He was already famous before his campaign, as well as rich. I was always amused by his enemies claiming that Trump is ‘not really a billionaire’, which misses the point. Trump did not run on an image of being a billionaire, and whatever he has in the bank will be more than enough to meet his needs and wants.
The enemies of Trump are therefore frustrated by their inability to attack Trump on the vectors which usually work on candidates. What’s more, he is shameless. That is, Trump knows his flaws and limits but won’t be leveraged by them. This makes oppo planning against Trump very difficult.
Trump’s enemies will say he lost the 2020 election, was also responsible for the GOP underperforming in 2022, and therefore is sure to lose in 2024.
Don’t buy that crap.
I said earlier that Trump is not my first choice for 2024, but his win in 2016 was against the full money and effort of the Democrats, a solid win that is undeniable.
2020 was a year of dubious events, and the many shady actions of the sold through fear of COVID. While Trump made mistakes in his re-election campaign, it would be absurd to expect anything like the same conditions next year.
2024 needs to be a referendum on Biden. Democrats will try to make it about Trump if he gets the nomination, so Republicans should resolve among themselves to keep the focus on Biden, whatever happens in the GOP primaries.
Now in the title, I alluded to the Survival of America. The growing size of government, in size, cost and arrogance is one clear threat to the American ideal of self-governance. But the outrages of the COVID years demonstrate how many people in government will immediately abuse the rights of others if they are given the smallest excuse to do so. People were arrested for going to church, walking alone on a beach, in some cases even just for going to work. And of course, on January 6 2021, for hundreds of law-abiding Americans, protesting the 2020 election was perverted into an alleged overthrow of the government, and dozens of undercover government agents managed to sell the false claim that everyone in the group was violent, even though the only person killed that day was an unarmed female protester by a Police Officer who did not even identify himself before shooting.
In the years since he took power, Biden’s Department of ‘Justice’ has directed parents who show up at School Board meetings be treated as ‘terrorists’, and that his Department of Defense abandon allies and coddle enemies while lowering standards for top units to make sure they are sufficiently ‘diverse’. Biden’s Fed jacks rates up even as they prove useless in helping the economy, while he continually urges spending money the government never has, on projects no sane voter would support or consider good investment.
In the past 25 years, we have seen a relentless assault on every Constitutional right, plus the advancement of ‘rights’ that never existed such as abortion and sex change operations for minors. Meanwhile, nothing is done to care for veterans, to support small American businesses, or protect the ideals of our Constitution.
And oddly, this ties in to Trump. His right to run in 2024 should be beyond dispute, yet his enemies are seeking to deny him that right, sullying his image in ways which reflect the worst political slander in memory. Meanwhile, Republicans who ought to defend Trump in order to protect basic American rights, are instead playing along with Democrats on expanded government, ignoring their constituents, and replacing our representative republic with an aristocracy of the political elite.
This brings us back to Trump, DeSantis, and maybe someone yet to be known. In 1975, after the fall of Nixon, the closest thing to Leadership the Republicans had Nelson Rockefeller. Yet a year later, Ronald Reagan emerged as the new leader for Conservatives, too late for the 1976 election but in place for 1980. Since that time, however, the closest thing to Leadership the Republicans could produce was named Bush.
We are starved for leadership in the Republican Party, especially Conservatives. Enough so that Trump will do if we can’t do better. DeSantis might be a good choice, although we have not yet seen him fight on the national level the way we have by Trump.
DeSantis has done a great job with Florida. But he has not stood up to the DNC yet, nor rebuilt our military, nor crafted international trade agreements or military treaties, the way Trump has. It’s easy to talk the talk, even Bush did that for a time. We need to know before we commit to a nominee, but we need to make sure we back a real Conservative, and judge by policy rather than the stories we get from the Left and the RINOs.
